corporate social responsibility a practical case · the forum was renamed into project mvo (csr...
TRANSCRIPT
Corporate Social Responsibility A practical case
Faculty of Applied Economics Johan Braet
Lecture on December 13nd 2016
Community Service Learning Ucsia
2
What is CSR
● Probably the most discussed issue in CSR is its definition (surprise, surprise,..) or rather the lack of a proper unambiguous definition
● A lot is being sold under the flag of CSR, which has nothing to do with the essence of it
3
What is CSR (2)
● If we look into the evolution from quality of products to nowadays Total Quality Management, we have to admit that CSR has originated from that context
● Indeed, safety, care for the environment and finally the social context are major principles based on a general concept of respect, conglomerated in the idea of sustainability
4
What is CSR (3) ● Finally the CSR concepts are converted
into an ISO norm 26000, mixing so many elements of the industrial and societal context that presumably its application is jeopardised
● In stead, we only needed a logical elaboration of the quality standards being developed over the last six decades and inspired by major Japanese and US guru’s
5
Origin of the project CSR (MVO)
● Heritage of the former dean’s forum to the outside world ✦ Concept out-dated ✦ Students did not like it, lecturers were embarrassed,
academics were frustrated ✦ Boring
● Our then-current (Economy) students were a little bit too focused on the evidence of money ✦ All of them have equipment for at least a few hundred euro’s ✦ When something is broken, buy a new one ✦ The non-evidence of money had completely vanished ✦ Only a few students new about social profit ✦ And yet… the majority of our Economy students become
leading business people
6
So we started very carefully ● A test was run in the framework of a seminar
(2009-2010) ✦ Three organisations ✦ Huge success ✦ It was a win-win-win
◆ Students liked to do something with their knowledge – Indicative for the conflict between theoretical and applied scientific
work – More and more our educational system will be challenged by the
huge information level of our society ◆ The organisations were very pleased as they do not have
the money to pay consultants on the commercial markets ◆ We were pleased as the students liked doing the
projects, and they did have some major life experiences
7
So we started very carefully (2) ● Initial goal setting
✦ Let the students be aware of (the presence and the need of) social profit organisations
✦ Let students realise that money is not an evidence ✦ Let them –being smart youngsters- help organisations that cannot
afford consultants ✦ Let us help turning social profit organisations into strong and well-
managed organisations ✦ Let students do practice about what they had learned about ✦ As they will enter top functions in industry, hopefully they will recall
the project –the positive collateral concept
8
Then we started for real ● The forum was renamed into Project MVO (CSR project
since 2010-2011) ✦ 50 organisations are being assisted during the academic year ✦ Contents of the mission can vary enormously from one organisation to another ✦ Start in October and final deliverables beginning of may ✦ The whole project is run according to the principles of good project management as
learned during a compulsory course “Project Management”
● Timing ✦ Call for projects (form to be filled out by the organisation) in June - September ✦ Students make preference list beginning of academic year ✦ We constitute teams and allocate internal coaches (full department of ENM) (October) ✦ The teams have to reformulate the mission in their own words, and let it be approved
by the organisation and the internal coach ✦ Then a project management is being developed and the project starts ✦ Regular meetings with organisation responsible and UA-coach ✦ Two intermediate reports, regular communication ✦ Final event
9
Then we started for real ● Final Event
✦ A booklet is composed of all “abstracts” ✦ A poster is being developed ✦ A poster session (after an introduction lecture by a third party) ✦ All social profit organisations are invited ✦ Closing academic session where the winners have to present ✦ Three awards (academic, industry and students) ✦ Networking
10
Some figures ● About 50 organisations per year ● Some of them have continuous projects (Payoke,
Auxilia, since the very beginning) ● About two to three dossiers have problems mostly
in terms of communication ● The vast majority of organisations is pleased ● In 2015 a cut down to 30 projects due to
rearrangement of the course ● In 2014-2015 we won the award for most
innovative course of the University of Antwerp ● Other universities were present: “to copy”
11
Issues ● The students complain about the amount of work and the
non-representativeness of the ECST points ● Becomes more difficult to get things financed as formerly
industry was subsidising the event ● Given the effort of the academic team (a large part of the
department is involved) and as it is not giving rise to money, PhD’s or publications… ✦ So negative connotation for career evolution ✦ No effect on financing mechanisms for high schools and universities
● Some of the dossiers needed for additional knowledge (law, medical, biomedical, engineering, social sciences, ICT,…) ✦ Huge potential for extension to other faculties, universities and high
schools ● Demand exceeds offer by a factor of three or four… ● Media are barely interested
12
● 12
13
And what about the goal setting ✦ Let the students be aware of (the presence and the need of) social
profit organisations ✓ ✦ Let students realise that money is not an evidence ✓ ✦ Let them –being smart youngsters- help organisations that cannot
afford consultants ✓ ◆ It is one of the big discussion subjects (and discriminators) in job applications ◆ The added value amounts more than 1 M€ when looking to the accumulated
cost-benefit realised by all projects…based on those cases where the amounts were communicated
✦ Let us help turning social profit organisations into strong and well-managed organisations ✓ ◆ We only succeeded partly in this goal as the way is so long
✦ Let students apply theory in practice ✓ ✦ As they will enter top functions in industry, hopefully they will recall
the project –the positive collateral concept ✓◆ A first contract has been closed between an industrial partner and a SPO
